Hot spots to buy: Bronzeville and Forest Park

A south side neighborhood rich in African-American history that is experiencing a booming revival and a near-west suburb with a lively, funky downtown strip and home prices that are affordable (but rising fast) are this week's stops on Crain's ongoing tour of great places homebuyers should check out. The soft spot for both locations is schools. Open-enrollment public schools within their boundaries receive low ratings, but there are bright spots in the specialty and charter schools, such as Proviso Math & Science Academy in Forest Park and King College Prep High School in Bronzeville.

(Bronzeville encompasses all or part of three of Chicago's official neighborhoods; price data for them is in the text below.)

"Everybody can see the potential that Bronzeville has," said Hasani Steele, a Re/Max Premier agent who focuses on the neighborhood, "and that's what they're buying: not what it is right now, but what it's becoming." After a 20th century heyday as the home of many pioneers, including anti-lynching activist Ida B. Wells and pilot Bessie Coleman, the neighborhood went into decline for a while thanks to disinvestment, crime and other forces.

In the 21st century, Bronzeville has been coming back fast, both in recognition of its layered history and for a practical reason: It's the next place south of the booming South Loop. Not only that, but "people from the North Side come down here and see they can afford to live so close to the lake—two or three blocks—and they can hardly believe it," Steele said.

Marilyn and Greg Rosen, who've lived in the West Loop for six years, recently put an 1890s greystone townhouse in Bronzeville under contract for a price that the Rosens declined to disclose. They're moving to Bronzeville, said Marilyn Rosen, an attorney, because "we're getting so much house for the money, the commute to the Loop is easy, the architecture in the neighborhood is incredible and we'll live two and a half blocks from the lake." Having witnessed the West Loop's boom years firsthand, Rosen said, "we look forward to seeing it happen in Bronzeville as well."

In December, a 19th-century rowhouse on Prairie Avenue sold for $395,000, 8 percent above what the sellers paid for it five years prior, according to Midwest Real Estate Data.

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Re/Max

With rehab underway, this greystone rowhouse on 42nd Place is on the market at $849,900.

Developers have been busy in Bronzeville. Long-vacant lots are filling in with new construction, once-abandoned or derelict buildings are getting their luster restored, and as a result, prices are going up.

Here's where it gets complicated. Bronzeville encompasses all or part of three of Chicago's 77 official neighborhoods, and the Chicago Association of Realtors reports data separately for each of the three. In Douglas, on the north end of Bronzeville, the median price of a single-family home sold in 2017 was $385,000, an increase of 2.1 percent from a year earlier. For condos and townhouses, it was $152,000, up 31 percent. The steep uptick came from a series of freshly rehabbed units. In Oakland, mid-Bronzeville on the lakefront, the median house price was $423,000, up 4.4 percent, and for condos and townhouses, $268,250, up 23 percent. In Grand Boulevard, the southern part of Bronzeville, the median house price was $395,000, up 14.5 percent, and condos and townhouses, $160,000, up more than 33 percent.

What all that means is "folks are seeing that now is when they've got to get into Bronzeville," said Lennox Jackson, a developer whose firm, Urban Equities, has been building in Bronzeville for two decades. The neighborhood's path has been "slow, steady" in the years since, interrupted for several years by the housing crash of the mid-2000s.

In 1998, Urban Equities was part of a partnership that built some of the neighborhood's first privately funded new homes in decades, 18 townhouses at 44th Street and King Drive whose prices started at $160,000, high for the time in a South Side neighborhood. This year, Urban Equities is part of the Third Ward Parade of Homes, where he's building single-family homes priced at $610,000.

Condo prices are rising, too. At a new-construction three-flat on Oakwood Boulevard, the last unit sold in mid-February for $540,000. They're east of King Drive, where most of the action has been. Steele, who represented the condos, said "people are going west of King Drive now" to find lower prices.

The opening of a Mariano's grocery store in 2016 was the clearest sign of the tilt toward a new, vibrant era in Bronzeville. But it's still in its early years. "The risk factor has been reduced," Jackson said, "but there's still risk. But you pay less earlier in development, when there's a little uneasiness than if you buy deeper into the delivery of new homes."

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FOREST PARK

Median sale price in 2017: $210,250

Change since 2016: 10.4%

With a charming gray stucco exterior and an extensively rehabbed interior, a four-bedroom house in Forest Park was on the market just 56 days last fall before going under contract, "and it would have gone even faster if it hadn't been on Harlem Avenue," a busy street, said Nick Fournier, the Scout Real Estate Partners who represented the house.

The sale of the house, which has a stylish new kitchen and baths and new windows, utilities and roof, closed in late December at $275,000.

The trade-off—buying on Harlem Avenue—is the sort of decision buyers may have to make swiftly in Forest Park these days, where homes sold in an average of 77 days in 2017, according to Midwest Real Estate Data. That's 12 days faster than the previous year.

A four-bedroom house on Ferdinand Avenue was on the market for 33 days last fall before selling for $390,000. A rehabbed four-bedroom on Elgin Avenue sold in 53 days, for $435,000. A three-bedroom townhouse on Grove Lane lasted only four days on the market in January; the buyers closed on their $324,000 purchase Monday.

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Avenue 1 Realty Group

A newly rehabbed home on Thoma Avenue sold this week for $480,000.

It's a reflection of Forest Park's appeal to homebuyers who find the near west suburbs a sweet spot that is urban and closely connected to the city. "If somebody dropped you onto Madison Street," Forest Park's main shopping district lined with restaurants, bookstores and fashion boutiques, "it would be no different from being on Division Street in Chicago (or other) city neighborhoods," Fournier said.

Joined by Oak Park and River Forest in a triumvirate of suburbs that are handsome, historical and connected to the city by the CTA, Forest Park is the most affordable of them. The comparably low prices appeal to both young homebuyers and rehabbers, which has resulted in a low inventory of homes for sale. In the course of 2017, the inventory dropped from an already tight 2.6 months' supply to 1.7 months, one of the lowest in Cook County. (Four to six months is generally considered a healthy supply.)

"We don't have enough inventory for the kind of demand we're seeing," said Joelle Venzera, a Re/Max in the Village agent and 20-year resident of Forest Park. "It means people have to act fast when they see one they want." She represented buyers who in February paid $296,000 for a three-bedroom house on Monroe Street. It was on the market for just 17 days in December before her clients put it under contract.

The house is within walking distance of what Venzera said are two of Forest Park's prime attractions for homebuyers. It's half a mile, or 10 minutes' walk, from the CTA's Forest Park Blue Line station. And it's two blocks from Madison Street. Also just a few blocks away is the 11-acre site of the town's planned Cultural Park, envisioned as a green space with an outdoor concert venue, a farmers market and a skating pond.